I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, but I just finished up tonight. All in all, it yielded a pretty simple result, and I think I can certainly do more with it. I guess it’s more of a “proof of mashup”. The cover art was a blast to do, and I hope you all enjoy it.

I wrote this article last week in Arts Journalism. It’s about an old album, especially in Internet years, but it means a lot to me, and I’m happy the way the article turned out.

Into The Wild: For Emma Forever Ago

When Justin Vernon went deep into the woods for three winter months of solitude, he hoped to rid himself of a host of ailments, both emotional and physical. What the North Carolina native didn’t realize is that this respite would help to produce one of 2008’s most beloved albums: For Emma, Forever Ago.
A deeply personal piece of art, Emma, released under the moniker Bon Iver, is adorned with intriguingly vague language. Coupled with his bare-bones production values, this creates a sweet breath of smog in an age of crisp auto-tuning and hush-hush ghostwriting. Almost entirely self-produced in his father’s northern Wisconsin cabin, the album is a delicate swirl of layers. Vernon creates a cave of highly relatable emotion, urging the listener to ask, as he does in “The Wolves (Act I and II)”, “what might have been lost?”

Vernon recognizes the beauty in imperfection, often detuning his instruments by cents, or fractions of a note. On cuts like “Skinny Love,” the clash of his beautifully tame falsetto and gravelly, sharp wail helps establish the emotional range that makes his creative expressions believable. Instead of rehashing the same old “guy with a guitar” gimmick throughout Emma, Vernon creates a varying, fluid series of nine songs that speak of confusion, rejection, and the deepest pain, heartbreak. There are certainly elements of insanity and nakedness, but it is that relentless audacity which frees Emma from the genre’s all too typical inauthenticity.

Every once in a while, an album comes along with an intriguing story. Vernon has ridden that story of solitude to the top, but when the time came to analyze the musician behind the myth, he stood strong. His songs are better than a story; they testify to the musical release of the all-too-relatable, deep emotions that thrust him into the wilderness. Here’s to another trip.

When U2’s new single, “Get On Your Boots”, off of their new album No Line On The Horizon, was released, I was initially underwhelmed, but it wasn’t long until I warmed up to its fast paced, cheesy lyrics. Only a world-renowned activist like Bono could whip out the line, “I don’t want to talk about wars between nations,” when getting sexy with his ladies.

My favorite thing to come out of “Boots” is an amazing remix by the upcoming Italian duo Crookers, previously most famous for their remix of Kid Cudi’s “Day N’ Nite”, which peaked at #2 on the UK singles chart. Their loud, tinny reinterpretation of “Boots”‘ guitar riff, coupled with an ephemeral Bonogasm™, really morphs the track into something truly danceable.

Named after a mythical South American pickpocketing school, School of Seven Bells consists of Secret Machines’ Benjamin Curtis and identical twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza. Their electronic, airy feel resonates throughout the entirety of the hypnotizingly beautiful “Half Asleep”, off of their 2008 debut, Alpinisms.

I’ve been on an inexcusably long hiatus, and your inboxes and news feeds have been inexcusably empty as a result.

“Service Bell” made me break the silence.

A part of the star-studded charity album Dark Was The Night, the Grizzly Bear and Feist track has been on repeat all day today. There’s something about her haunting, airy vocals, coupled with Grizzly’s beautiful harmonies that makes me wish the song was a bit longer than 2 and 1/2 minutes. I highly recommend this soothing lil’ ditty.

When compiling this post, I had so many great covers that I’m all set for Cover Lover 3! This being said, I pushed my favorites to the front. I especially recommend the Bloc Party cover; Final Fantasy puts his heart into that one.

An aggregator will store all of the posts that you haven’t looked at since you last checked the “feed” of posts. Ideally, you will have multiple sites that are being fed to the aggregator. It’s kind of like a one-stop-shop for your blogs/news sites. Personally, I use Bloglines, but there are many others, like Google Reader and NetNewsWire.

This weekend, I listened to the entirety of The Lonely Island’s Incredibad, previously mentioned here, and was pleasantly surprised. A solid album with hilarious guest appearances, from The Strokes’ Julian Casablanca to a scat-tastic Jack Black, The Lonely Island didn’t half-ass their first record, and it shows.

Previously, they have relied on the music video format, using larger-than-life visual characters and quick gags. Impressively, they are still able to keep that broad feel through songs like the previously mentioned “I’m On A Boat” as well as the Timbalandian “Boombox”.

Unfortunately, there is a bit of recycling, with 6 of the 19 songs having already been released in some form, but ’tis the life of a debut album.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the cultural reception to this satire of the modern-day music scene.

When Kanye’s 808’s and Heartbreak was released, it was promptly attacked by a tsunami of backlash. As a result, everyone and their mother remixed the songs, in an attempt to fix what Kanye had so hurriedly spit out.

Over the last few months, I have heard over fifteen remixes of Heartbreak, so it is easy to see how it would take a tip from thetape to make me re-discover a song I had downloaded all the way back in November.

Max Justus’s “Street Lights” remix is truly a “diamond in the rough”. Just one of the eight remixes that he has put together from 808’s and Heartbreak, “Street Lights” sounds like what would happen if the environmentally conscious ballad was shoved into a NES. And take it from me, that’s a compliment.

Over the months, my dedication to itsmyblogg has gradually increased, as has my traffic. So, now that I have (hopefully) tens and tens of you regular readers, I’d like to know what you want. After all, you are the reason I blog(g).

For example:

Would you like to hear more of my opinion on the music that I post?

Would you like to hear about my thoughts of the music industry in general?

This isn't too too finished, but it's my first song in a while, so I figured I'd share it. It's missing another verse and some kind of solo. We'll see. Was recording off of my videocamera's external mic; sorry for the white noise.